Well done Mr Howard

I am proud of John Howard taking a stand to ban the upcoming Australian cricket tour of Zimbabwe. It is sad that this has taken so long though. Robert Mugabe has been a tyrant for many years in Zimbabwe. But it must be said that John Howard has been the number one world leader to move against Mugabe, and again he deserves praise for this. It was Howard who strongly moved to have Mugabe and Zimbabwe removed from the British Commonwealth of nations, as a result of this the rest of Europe took notice and withdrew their relationships.
People have argued that sport and politics should be kept separate. What a modernist world view- that things can be so disconnected. Geoff Marsh (former Australian test cricketer) has questioned whether such a boycott would do any good. This ban and boycott will do a lot of good. Mugabe will not have his propaganda victory now. People will know that Australia are refusing to tour because of his regime. It is now up to the rest of the cricketing world to follow suit.
The suggestion that the games be played in South Africa is a reasonable one, and would not be a big stress on the Aussie team who will be in South Africa for the Twenty20 world champiionship in September anyway.
I fear that the ICC will not change as a result of this though. I would prefer that Cricket Australia refused to tour as a challenge to the ICC and their corruption, but I guess that was never going to happen.